Open Primaries

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hankster News of the Day for Independents May 22

MORNING READ

Most mornings The Hankster brings you the top news articles from mainstream media and the blogosphere that independent activists need to read. The title of the article contains the link to the original, followed by the author and publication, and then a snipit from the article. You can subscribe to this briefing by email at FeedBlitz or choose your favorite newsreader... Here's today's picks:

Black conservatives and gay marriage (By Robert Smith Jr., Detroit News/Opinion) The only person of color before President Barack Obama to really run for the office of president of the United States was Lenora Fulani. She was on the ballot in all 50 states. Cain, Jackson, nor Sharpton ran for anything but publicity. They got television shows and book deals.

California Independent Voter Organization Endorses Candidates for Congress in June "Top Two" Primary (The Hankster) IndependentVoice.Org, a statewide organization representing the interests of California's 3.6 million independent voters, today announced its endorsements of Congressional candidates Stacey Lawson (Democrat, 2nd District), Linda Parks (independent, 26th District), and Abel Maldonado (Republican, 24th District) for the June 5, 2012 primary. The candidates were selected based on their support for political reforms that empower independent voters like the open primary and redistricting reform.

W.Va. could add hurdles to primary ballot (Lawrence Messina, RealClearPolitics) Only a handful of states don't require petition signatures for at least certain categories of candidates, said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. For 27 years, Winger has tracked legislation, court rulings and other developments in this area. West Virginia mandates signatures for third-party and independent candidates running for president, Congress and statewide office, a standard that does not affect the primaries of the state's recognized political parties.

'Fatally flawed': Why third parties still fail despite voter anger (By Kevin Liptak, CNN) Most Americans have probably never heard of Americans Elect. But as polls show dissatisfaction with both parties nearing all-time highs, a group created for the 2012 campaign to field a third-party presidential candidate would seem like a natural success. Why, then, did the group -- which launched in a flurry of publicity and spent $35 million to get on ballots in 29 states -- fail?

Why Americans Elect Crashed And Burned (Kyle Leighton, TPM) It seems that the inability to create a movement in this vein was less about the sentiment — polls show Americans are aren’t fans of either party specifically or the political process generally — but it was lacking a key ingredient: leadership.

Swing Voters and Elastic States (By NATE SILVER, NY Times/FiveThirtyEight) North Carolina is a swing state that has relatively few swing voters. Rhode Island is not a swing state, but it has quite a lot of swing voters. Are you confused yet?